'Gov’t must bring basic needs to Beduins'

The Abu Basma Regional Council is failing to provide adequate infrastructural,
health and educational services to its population, and must work with the
relevant ministries to better provide basic human needs to residents, State
Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss reported in an audit released on
Tuesday.

The council, which was established in 2004, is responsible for
the 11 recognized Beduin communities – the 30,000 residents of Abu Krinat, Bir
Hadaj, Makhul, Kasr al-Sir, Tarabin al-Sana, Darijat, Umm Batin, al-Sayed,
Mulada and Kukhale (Abu Rubiy’a) – as well as the approximately 50,000
“diaspora” Beduins who live in unrecognized villages outside the council’s
jurisdiction.

From March through October 2010, the State Comptroller’s
Office examined the services the council provides to its vast population, which
the office acknowledged presents quite a difficult challenge due to the
widespread nature of the people, and the fact that the council has no
independent income due to its failure to charge property taxes to
residents.

The audit occurred in conjunction with the environment,
transportation, social affairs and health ministries, as well as the water
authority.

Many of the council’s residents have no access to public
supplies – Makhul and Kukhale residents do not receive any water from the
council, while those in Tarabin do not have the infrastructure necessary to
provide water, according to the report. Tarabin, however, remains the only
community within the council to have a public sewage collection system for
residential buildings and public institutions, and the council has neither
informed residents about the need to install private sewage pits, nor conducted
examinations of the existing sewage disposal systems, the report
said.

Likewise, organized trash collection is virtually nonexistent,
Lindenstrauss wrote. While some residents have received waste removal after
making special requests of the council, no regulated system for garbage
clearance exists, so litter usually either ends up in open areas or is
burned.

In the educational sector, roads that lead to educational
institutions are mostly unpaved and unregistered, and the council also fails to
conduct sanitation checks in schools, despite the many deficiencies that the
health ministry has brought to its attention. Socially, the council also has
trouble providing services to residents due to their vast dispersal, and family
health clinics only exist in six of the localities – in temporary, portable
buildings, the report said.

After reviewing all of these issues, the
state comptroller determined that the relevant ministries need to coordinate
with the council to complete the necessary infrastructure in the communities,
which are lacking many basic and essential needs in the public health and safety
sectors. Meanwhile, the report also stressed that it is the council’s duty to
provide municipal services and regular water supply to residents within its
jurisdiction, and must work together with the proper authorities to ensure that
this occurs.

In response to the report, the Abu Basma Regional Council
said that the findings reflect “the sad and complex reality” of the situation
there, but said that since its opening the council has been operating in an area
ridden with disputes on basic issues such as land ownership.

Any attempt
to promote projects for the benefit of the residents, the council argued, is met
with resistance – the state prohibits building on certain land plots, and no
master plans for building and zoning have been approved.

While the report
cited all of its criticisms of the council, it also failed to highlight any of
its accomplishments that have been made without any functioning budget, the
response said. For example, the creation of new advanced educational
institutions has caused the school dropout rate to go from 60 percent to zero,
the council argued.

“The authors of the report failed to understand that
the problem is not in the conduct of the Abu Basma Regional Council, but in the
government offices mentioned in almost every part of the audit, who do not
respond to the budgetary demands of the council and prevent it from supplying
the services that the residents are ready to receive,” the council said.